synergy
Innovative ideas, maximum engagement
  • About us
    • Meet the team
  • Our sectors
    • Commercial Organisations
    • Membership Organisations and Charities
  • Products
    • Commercial organisations
      • Creative design
      • Direct mail
      • Data security, processing and cleansing
      • Marketing Hub
      • Training packs
      • Branded merchandise
      • Print management
      • Banners, exhibition stands and wall art
      • Our team as an extension of yours
      • Partner and sponsor support
      • Warehousing, pick, pack and dispatch
      • Marketing operational print
      • Packaging and point of sale
      • Digital marketing
    • Membership organisations and charities
      • Membership and donor welcome and renewal packs
      • Creative design
      • Direct mail
      • Data security, processing and cleansing
      • Membership cards
      • Marketing Hub
      • Training packs
      • Branded merchandise
      • Print management
      • Banners, exhibition stands and wall art
      • Our team as an extension of yours
      • Partner and sponsor support
      • Warehousing, pick, pack and dispatch
      • Digital marketing
  • Insight and Advice
    • Case studies
    • Insight
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • Membership portal log in

The Homeless Letter

Charity, Direct Mail

Agency: GOSS, Gothenburg, Sweden
Client: Gothenburg Homeless Aid
Product: Charity
Country: Sweden

The Homeless Letter street

Background

Christmas was the most important time of year for the Gothenburg Homeless Aid organisation. It was the time when people tend to give more to those less fortunate than themselves than at other times of the year. It was also the time when they hoped to raise most of their funds for the year ahead.

Idea

If it is hard to get people’s attention with Direct Mail, it is even harder at Christmas. Simply to make the letter stand out in the avalanche of Christmas cards and commercial mailings, the agency, let it spend a night out in the streets. Literally. Once the letter had experienced the same wet and cold as the homeless of Gothenburg, then it was posted.

Results

In total, 22% of all recipients donated an average of just over 29 Euro (up on the previous year’s results of 15% of recipients donating an average of 21 Euro). The campaign as a whole raised 163,000 Euro, a lot for a relatively small city.

The Homeless Letter Full

Synergy Says

This idea dramatises the problem of life on the streets clearly and dramatically. Of all the letters lying on your doormat, which one are you going to look at first?

Yes, the bedraggled, dog-eared one for no other reason than it looks different to all the others. As John Caples noted in “Tested Advertising Methods” over seventy years ago, if you can’t appeal to people’s self-interest, appeal to their sense of curiosity. The other thing this mailing does is trigger a cognitive response. You hold it in your hands and simply can’t help but imagine what it must be like to have to spend the night out in the rain and the cold.

So simple, so powerful, so very successful.

Creative Team

Copywriters: Elisabeth Berlander, Ulrika Good, Michael Schultz
Art Directors: Gunnar Skarland, Albin Larsson, Mattias Frendberg, Jan Eneroth, Mimmi Andersson
Graphic Designer: Louise Christiansson
Production Designers: Elin Andreasson, Lena Björklund Henriksson
Account Managers: Anna Troglin, Monica N Persson, Lena Kling
Account Supervisors: Johan Good, Stig Lundstedt, Fredrik Toreskog

To binge on your own beautifully printed and bound copy collection of these campaigns simply drop Andrew a line with your postal address to andrew@synergy-print.co.uk. Please put ‘ROI request’ in the subject line. Have a thoroughly creative day!

Charity, Direct Mail
UNICEF: Toy Soldiers Bulk Catnip DM

Related Posts

gary1

Digital, Direct Mail, Marketing

What kind of reality is this?

Mempad

Charity, Digital, Memberships, Print

No two people are the same.

Family

Direct Mail, Marketing, Print

Generating new clients, quickly (and cost effectively)

Recent Posts

  • How to turn your members into advocates
  • What kind of reality is this?
  • No two people are the same.
  • It’s a wrap!
  • Generating new clients, quickly (and cost effectively)

Recent Comments

    Visit us

    Synergy Print Management Ltd
    57 Britannia Way
    Lichfield
    Staffs
    WS14 9UY

    Get in touch

    01543 257257

    hello@synergy-print.co.uk

    Useful information

    • How can we help?
    • Membership portal
    • Blog
    • Synergy downloads
    • Privacy policy